The Invisible Crowd

Chapter 6: Yonas

RAPIST ASYLUM SEEKER WHO DUMPED VICTIM ON RUBBISH TIP IS RELEASED AFTER BEING TWO HOURS AWAY FROM DEPORTATION

The toilet door snapped shut and Yonas let out a long breath. The space was tiny, but for a train toilet it was amazingly clean. It barely even smelled of toilet. He looked cautiously into the tiny mirror above the sink – then jerked away. Surely that bearded scarecrow wasn’t really him. He splashed his face, reached for the snail of toilet roll, dabbed a soft wad of it against his cheeks, stuffed some in his pocket for later, then sat down on the toilet lid to think. He failed to stop himself replaying Osman’s ruby-red eyes, those crooked toes…

Slowly and smoothly, so that he could barely feel it, the train moved off. The glass of the little window was clouded. Yonas managed to shove it open an inch, then leaned onto the edge of the sink and stared out of the gap at the receding station. Rows of neat houses passed by, more and more quickly, before all the buildings petered out, giving way to rolling green fields and low, misty skies, leaving Osman and Gebre behind.

Yonas dropped his head to his knees and groaned. What was Gebre thinking, staying on? They’d gone through so much together to get to this country. Why did it have to end with an argument?

‘Okay, we need to leave in five,’ Yonas had whispered. ‘Ready?’

Gebre had followed him silently outside. ‘I don’t know what your genius plan is,’ he said when they were round the corner, ‘but we can’t leave Osman. He’s still not speaking and he can’t walk – it’s our fault.’

‘It’s not our fault!’

‘It kind of is. We can’t abandon him.’

‘He’s in a bad way, but he’ll recover – Abraham did, remember? And if we get out of here we have a chance to rescue him; we can report Aziz, and that way Osman might be taken to hospital, or a safe home of some kind – he’s only a kid, they’ll go easy on him.’

‘So how would we report Aziz, then? By turning ourselves in?’

‘There must be a way.’

‘Osman wanted to come with us.’

‘Well, he can’t now,’ Yonas found himself snapping. ‘Look, the others are taking care of him, and Aziz will leave him alone after this. Plus, if we leave it’ll teach the bastard that torture doesn’t work.’

‘It could make him do it more. To the others.’

‘Well then, the same could apply to us. We need to survive, Gebre. I have to earn some money to send to Melat… Look, here’s the plan – we hitch a ride on the rubbish truck. If it works we’ll be miles away in minutes. And it’s about to arrive – have you got your photo?’

‘We can’t get on a rubbish truck in daylight! The driver will see us.’

‘He might not. We’ve done much riskier things. Gebre, I cannot stay one day longer with that monster. And we don’t have to – we’re not in prison any more.’

‘Well, I don’t like it either, but I’m not going to run off now and get into more trouble just because you’ve suddenly decided it’s time. I’m done with your reckless plans – if it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have got ourselves into prison in the first place.’

‘But… Gebre, it was a joint project! We had to tell the world…’

‘No, you came up with the idea, and I followed, like always. Well, not any more.’

‘But we got all the way here, didn’t we? Come on, the rubbish truck will be here any second! We’re not seriously going to split now?’

‘If you won’t wait, then go. I’ve always dragged you down anyway.’

‘No…’

But Gebre had already turned his back and walked inside. Yonas wanted to yell at him to come back, but that would alert Aziz, and he could already hear the rumble coming down the track.

Bang bang bang. Yonas jerked up straight. The handle of the train toilet door rattled, and then… nothing. After a few seconds, he relaxed a little and listened to the gentle chunters and rumbles of the train as it grunted towards his new life. So, he and Gebre were apart. For a while. But Gebre would follow soon. It would be easy enough for them to find each other – he had memorized Auntie’s number too. And maybe he would bring Osman along, fully recovered, and Yonas and Auntie could help them both get settled. In the meantime, there was no point regretting the decision to go. The deed was done and it was just too painful to dwell on separation from Gebre, just as it was on leaving Melat, leaving Eritrea – he had to focus on the now, on the near future, on survival practicalities. Top priority: getting off the train without getting caught, and then getting some coins together to phone Auntie. From her house he would be able to phone Melat, tell her he’d made it, and find out how they were all doing. He might even get time to tell her a bit about what England was like, about these scenes out of the train window, rolling velvety hills, plump clumps of trees, cotton-wool sheep swimming in verdant grass…

But she would ask after Gebre. What would he say? She was a bit like a big sister to him too, ever since his father was disappeared all those years ago. The train shuddered past an old church spire, a farm, some glossy black cows, a sports car whizzing along a perfectly tarmacked road…

Yonas wished he could tell Gebre how simple it had been to escape after all. More than that – when ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ came on the radio, while he sat there in the truck next to Bin Man Joe, as if he were getting a lift from an old friend, it had felt like fate, like it was meant to happen exactly that way, almost like his father was sitting in the back, singing along out of tune, getting ready to tell his son for the hundredth time how, when he was studying in America, every student knew the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s songs, because they meant freedom… If only he could tell his father that he’d finally made it to the UK! Even fifteen years on, he couldn’t shake the ridiculous idea in the back of his mind that his parents might both reappear one day, open a door when he least expected it, laughing as if they had been playing an attenuated game of hide and seek all this time. He leaned his forehead against the window and felt it judder, bouncing his brain around in his skull, and it took him back to that trip on the steam train to the beach at Massawa with his family when he was little, how he’d craned out of the window in awe at the rugged brown mountains and the dazzling sapphire skein of the Red Sea…

This train will shortly be arriving at Doncaster. Change here for trains to London King’s Cross.

Yonas leapt up from the toilet seat and stood, poised for a swift exit. When the train shuddered to a halt, he unlocked the toilet door, slipped out and stepped off. He walked to the opposite platform and stood against a wall, making sure nobody had seen him, before figuring out which platform the next London train was going from, then went to wait at the far end of it, behind a pillar. The next train to arrive – on – platform – three…

He got on last, beelined for another toilet and took possession, felt himself breathe again. He sat on the loo, propped his arms on the edge of the sink unit and cradled his heavy forehead, allowing it to roll gently from side to side.

It was a strange moment when Bin Man Joe drove off, leaving him outside the station alone. He’d felt naked and vulnerable and, for the first time, black. Literally everyone walking past him was white, luminously pale – a procession of ghosts. He became conscious that he was wearing his dirty overalls still, while the men all wore smart jeans or branded trainers, Nike, Adidas, Reebok… And the girls! Yonas hadn’t seen a female human being for months. He watched a couple of slick-haired teenage girls go by arm in arm, cheeping with giggles, their jeans clinging so tightly that they showed every curve, and he imagined Sarama outshining all of them in her baggy camouflage.

Bang b-bang bang. Bang bang.

Yonas jerked awake. More knocks, louder. He rubbed his eyes.

Bang bang bang bang.

This person was persistent. Yonas flushed. He needed to pee now, after sitting on the toilet for hours without lifting the lid. He decided he would try. This was the purpose of a toilet, after all.

Bang bang bang bang bang.

‘Just a minute.’ His bladder was bursting but nothing would come out – he was too panicked. He zipped up, cleared his throat and unlocked the door.

‘Ticket, please, sir.’ An official-looking man was standing in the corridor with a small machine in his hands, and a blonde woman with a child were behind him, staring.

Yonas swallowed. ‘But, I already…’

‘You’ve been in here for a while now, sir.’

Yonas’s kneecaps turned to goo. ‘I just came in,’ he said.

‘No you didn’t!’ the woman shrilled. ‘We’ve been waiting ages! My little girl here needs a wee. Come on, Evie.’ She shoved her child ahead of her, past Yonas, followed her into the toilet and locked the door to his sanctuary.

Yonas gulped. ‘I have a stomach problem,’ he improvised, then grimaced and clutched his belly, leaning over as if in agony, thinking of his ballooning bladder. He did feel pretty ill right now – though that was probably the terror.

‘I still need your ticket, sir,’ the conductor said flatly.

Yonas straightened up, trying to think fast. Behind the conductor, he noticed a smart man in a suit, with blond hair and glasses, who seemed to be watching disapprovingly. He felt inside his empty pockets, as if he were about to find a crisp orange train ticket in there, and squeezed his little wooden rooster so hard the beak almost pierced his skin. Then he looked up at the conductor again, into those pale hazel eyes, trying to connect, to convey wordlessly how badly he needed his help. ‘Sir, I do not know where the ticket has gone,’ he said quietly. ‘I must have dropped it. I am sorry – I am not myself today. I have just heard that… my brother and my parents have been killed.’

The conductor’s face warped into an expression that was both sceptical and slightly aghast. Yonas imagined his own face in it, like a mirror, the moment when he first heard that news. It was so vivid still, that day, back in the revolutionary school – he was preparing to put on his first play, setting up the tarpaulin stage under an acacia tree, with Gebre’s set painted onto old sheets, hardly able to contain his excitement about the moment when the actors stepped in front of the audience… when they were interrupted. Yonas and Melat. Come with me. The commander. What had they done wrong? I have bad news for you. There was a surprise attack today, by enemy MiGs. Your parents and brothers were hit… The assault of those words, their cold, factual finality. . .

A hand was patting his back. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that, mate,’ the conductor said, his voice softer than before. ‘But I do still need to check your ticket. You sure you’ve lost it?’

Yonas jabbed his fingers in his pockets once more. But the conductor squeezed his arm.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Look, just make sure you hold onto it next time, okay?’

Yonas looked up at him, astounded, but just nodded mutely.

And then he heard a series of clicks, camera-like. Behind the conductor, that blond man was holding something in the air. Yonas tensed. Who was he? Why would he be taking pictures? Was he plainclothes police? Immigration? There was nowhere to run…

Sure enough, the man approached the conductor and asked if this passenger was travelling with a valid ticket. Yonas bit the insides of his cheeks. But then, bizarrely, the conductor told the man to back off and mind his own business. This seemed to anger the blond man who then claimed he was a politician. As the two men locked horns, Yonas saw his chance to slip away.

Down in the furthest carriage, the toilet was occupied, so he slouched down into a seat, so the top of his head couldn’t be seen from behind. He realized he was rubbing his scarred fingertips together: a tic he’d developed since they were burned, as if he could magic the sensitivity back. Across the aisle an elderly lady was looking at him sideways, but when she saw him turn to her, she immediately pretended to return to reading her newspaper. She was wearing pristine pointed leather shoes and her hair was set in immaculate ringlets, like a wig, so white it was almost purple. Maybe it was actually a very pale purple. The headline on her newspaper read:

SMUGGLING GANGS WANT TO SNEAK CALAIS MIGRANTS INTO BRITAIN TO COMMIT CRIMES HERE

Yonas turned to look out of the window. Unseeing, he clasped his hands, felt the sharpness of his nails digging into his knuckles. He wondered how many smuggled migrants like him there were in the UK right now. And where were they all? How many of them had claimed asylum? He supposed he’d meet some more when he got to London. He wished he didn’t have to find his way all on his own. He already missed Gebre like a limb.

At King’s Cross Station, announcements boomed from the tannoy like a robotic priest’s pronouncements across the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people on the concourse. Yonas weaved slowly through them, thinking how strange it was to be surrounded by so much energetic life. White faces might even be a minority here, he was pleased to note. There were lots of other black and African faces around, and also Chinese faces, Indian faces, Hispanic faces and faces with features he couldn’t place, so he didn’t feel like he stood out too much. But he did seem to be the only person in the entire station who wasn’t attempting to rush for a train, or staring with an anxious frown up at the departure board.

He leaned against a pillar in front of a coffee shop, closed his eyes to inhale the scent, and was right back in the Asmara house, walking down the stairs and towards the intoxicating aroma of roasting coffee beans emanating from the kitchen, mingled with incense and song. His mother, by the stove, her voice filling the room, wearing her favourite outfit, the burnt-orange wrap skirt and blouse resplendent with palm leaf patterns.

He looked inside, and watched the baristas standing at sleek chrome machines, bashing coffee grounds out of a filter gadget, refilling, locking the gadget into the machine and putting blue paper cups underneath to catch ebony streams of espresso. A perfect-looking concoction in seconds. He thought of how long it took his mother and Melat to make coffee, the traditional way: how they would measure out the bright green beans, pour them into a menkeshkesh, roast them until they were dark brown, grind them with a pestle and mortar, pour them into a jebena, heat and fan it on the stove, boil the liquid several times, filter it through date fibres… Melat loathed the ritual, but their mother insisted on it whenever guests were invited over. The rest of the time they all used a metal Italian espresso maker that his grandfather had acquired when it was left behind by the colonizers. Yonas and Melat both liked the coffee that came out of that just as well: sacrilege, according to their mother and grandmother. It was so long now since he’d had any kind of coffee. He watched the customers process out of the shop, blue paper cups of deliciousness carried unthinkingly in their hands.

A couple of sleek-haired ladies in high heels clip-clopped past, and the blonde one glanced at Yonas and wrinkled her nose. A targeted wrinkle. A clear message. He looked down at his overalls and tilted his head down to sniff his armpit discreetly. Bad. Of course it was bad. It was just hard to tell quite how repellent you were to others when you had got used to your own smell. Not just body odour – he probably reeked of fish guts as well. The thought prompted him to scan around for Aziz or Blackjack… but why would they be here? They were just small-time con artists. They’d never actually come after him, just as he’d told Gebre.

Outside the station, a road heaved with revving cars and grand, grumbling red buses, black taxis as glossy as aubergines and intent cyclists with helmets on, zipping through tiny gaps. It was all so loud, so intense… Yonas felt the sharp edge between pleasurable anonymity and terrifying loneliness. But he had to focus on the task at hand: to source some coins and call Auntie. He wondered whether she lived far from here, what she would look like, what she would be like, whether she would be as smiling and maternal as he imagined, whether she would be able to offer him a floor to sleep on, even just for a few nights. Surely she would be generous enough for that – she’d known his mother well, according to Melat. But even Melat had never actually met this Auntie. She had just read out her number to him over that crackly line. He’d written it onto the back of his hand, repeated it aloud over and over, and then he and Gebre had spent the next few evenings testing each other on it.

He went up to a couple of people, asking them if they had a coin for him to make a local phone call, but they just shook their heads and said ‘sorry’, as if the thing they were really sorry about was that their walk had been interrupted. He gave up, and walked slowly around, scanning the ground for dropped change, wondering if he would have to ask somebody to borrow their mobile phone or sit down and cup his hands, until, behind a kiosk selling newspapers and sweets, he spotted a silver glint. He squatted down. It was a small, angular, silver coin – twenty pence! He brushed off the dirt, examined the image of the Queen, who looked surprisingly pretty and young, and then looked around for a phone box.

When he found one, he was so anxious to get the coin in the slot that it sprang out and bounced on the floor, nearly rolling out of the booth. He rescued it, put it in with more care, and dialled the number. Auntie, it is me, Yonas! I am here! How do I find you? A quiet stuttering on the line, as he waited for the ring, but instead there sounded three notes rising in pitch, then again, then again. ‘This number is not recognized,’ a curt woman’s voice informed him. He must have mistyped. He tried again, more carefully, concentrating on every button. The same three notes. ‘This number is not recognized…’ He let it repeat a few times, then dropped the receiver so it hung from its cable, groaned low and long, and sank down to his knees on the grubby floor. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them, and fixated on the abandoned Coke can and globs of old chewing gum stuck in the corner. Had he memorized Auntie’s number wrongly? Surely not – he’d checked, and repeated it, so many times. Had he written it down wrong? Again, impossible – the line was crackly, but he’d had Melat repeat it twice. So had she been given the wrong number? Or had Auntie left the place where she was living? He would have to ask Melat when he had enough money for a long-distance call. If only he had an address for Auntie. What was he supposed to do now?

He stood up, pocketed the coin, and looked out at all the people passing by, each intent on a mission to get from A to B, to meet friends, family, to do business. If only he had someone to seek out in London, just one face that would light up in recognition and welcome and congratulate him for making it. But he had to deal with the situation he was in. The sensible thing would be to focus on finding some random Eritreans who could help him find a foothold. He’d heard that a couple of old army friends from back home were in the UK, but he had no idea where, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see them anyway. Amanuel, that distant cousin he’d met once, was supposed to be in Scotland…

Scanning the crowds for an approachable face, he spotted a woman who looked like she just might be Eritrean, with a curly cloud of black hair tied up. He remembered Melat styling hers just like that once.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘can I ask where you are from?’

‘Er, London,’ the woman said, looking faintly disgusted.

‘Oh right. I thought—’

‘Sorry, I’m running late.’

Yonas leaned against a wall. If he did spot an Eritrean who had time to talk to him, would he actually want to join an Eritrean diaspora community? He would inevitably be drawn into ferocious debates about the President and the current situation, and he’d be expected to go to church, and they’d quiz him on his past and he’d have to churn up experiences he didn’t want to share, not yet, maybe not ever, if he was going to keep going and stay positive. What he really wanted was a fresh start in this city, to make new friends here, British friends, generous people like Bin Man Joe who liked singing along to Bob Dylan, who didn’t have a clue about Eritrea and didn’t even want to know what side he was on, who could help him reinvent himself and show him the best way to live well in the UK and feel like a native. But what would his strategy be for doing that, and for finding work and a place to sleep? He couldn’t just linger here. He decided to walk while he thought, absorb the scenery, and keep an eye open for opportunities. Something would occur to him.